Eds note: Last week, the seventh Planned Parenthood video was released by the Center for Medical Progress (an eighth was released yesterday). Suffice it to say that the 7th video was perhaps the most heartbreaking and devastating yet. A couple of weeks ago, Joey Phillips preached a sermon entitled "Break the Arm of the Wicked," which, in large part, discussed abortion and the Planned Parenthood videos. Given the 7th and 8th videos, we are publishing here a powerful excerpt from his sermon, but the entire audio (linked above) is well worth a listen.

Over the past couple of weeks a radical pro-life group has released several videos that are the culmination of years of work they did in order to video some behind-the scenes-type conversations with Planned Parenthood employees in order to document some of the more horrifying aspects of the abortion industry. It has energized the pro-life movement, and has many politicians calling for the government to stop providing governmental aid to fund Planned Parenthood. Several states have already taken steps to do so. Planned Parenthood is on the defensive like it hasn’t been ever before, at least in my lifetime.

Whatever you think of the tactics of the group releasing the video, the effectiveness of their strategy cannot be questioned, in terms of garnering attention to callousness and inhumane nature of the abortion industry. And actually you probably shouldn’t be too worried about their tactics. As Derek Rishmawy effectively pointed out, when Pharaoh told the Hebrew midwives to start aborting male Israelites, they didn’t. They then lied to Pharaoh about why they were not obeying his orders, and, importantly, God blessed them for it. In Matthew 10:16, Jesus instructs us to be innocent as doves; sometimes, though, I think we need to be reminded about the command that directly preceded it.

But back to what matters, i.e. the content of the videos. Here is the thing…there isn’t really any new information being revealed. Everyone already knows that abortion on demand, up to just about any point in the pregnancy in some cases, has been legally protected since 1973. The harvesting of the babies’ body parts is also allowed. Christians, and others, have been fighting for decades to restrict abortion, with varying degrees of success.So why are these videos getting so much attention and causing political discussion when it has flown under the radar of the national consciousness for so long?

Ross Douthat of the New York Times, in an insightful article, hits on one of the reasons. He talks about a doctor who described a scene from 1976.

“People go outside in the morning in his neighborhood, after the garbage trucks have passed, and find “a foreignness upon the pavement,” a softness underfoot. Looking down, Selzer first thinks he sees oversize baby birds, then rubber baby dolls, until the realization comes that the street is littered with the tiny, naked, all-too-human bodies of aborted fetuses. Later, the local hospital director speaks to Selzer, trying to impose order on the grisly scene. It was an accident, of course: The tiny corpses were accidentally “mixed up with the other debris” instead of being incinerated or interred. It is not an everyday occurrence. Once in a lifetime, he says. And Selzer tries to nod along: “Now you see. It is orderly. It is sensible. The world is not mad. This is still a civilized society…“ But just this once, you know it isn’t. You saw, and you know.”

This is how evil operates in our ‘civilized society' and it's essentially the same way as David described things working a really long time ago, in Psalm 10, verses 8-11.

"He sits in ambush in the villages, in hiding places he murders the innocent."Have you ever noticed that despite being perfectly legal, protected specifically by our constitution according to the highest court in our land…you never really see commercials advertising your friendly neighborhood abortion clinic? They make sure you can find them if you look for them, but that’s about it. They hide, in plain sight. In hiding places they murder the innocent.

"His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless; he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket."You know who Planned Parenthood and their ilk make very sure are well informed on when, how, and where to have abortions and how to do so discreetly? Teenage girls. The public school system is the thicket; Planned Parenthood is watching for the scared and easily influenced…the helpless.

"He lurks that he may seize the poor; he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net."I’ll just let the founder of Planned Parenthood make this connection for us: “Women of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most. The average working man can support no more and the average working woman can take care of no more in decent fashion. Such parents swell the pathetic ranks of the unemployed. Feeble-mindedness perpetuates itself from the ranks of those who are blandly indifferent to their racial responsibilities. And it is largely this type of humanity we are now drawing upon to populate our world for the generations to come.”

The vast majority of Planned Parenthood clinics are in poor, minority areas. The majority of abortions are of minority babies with a poor parent or parents. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood would be proud of how they have continued her legacy of seizing the poor and drawing them into her net.

"The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might."Crushed.

An official, and a Doctor, with Planned Parenthood said the following in one of the videos released:“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”

I am going to crush below, I’m gonna crush above…and then the baby sinks down, taken out of the mom, and is tossed into the garbage after its picked clean of its useful organs.

"He says in his heart, 'God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.'"

What do we say to God in the face of this type of wickedness? What do we say to God when we are physically or sexually abused as a child because the wicked watch for the helpless, and are able to say in their hearts, “I shall not be moved; throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity” because they are protected by a justice system that will jail someone for 20 years for smoking weed too many times but give someone a few weeks in jail and probation for molestation and abuse in the rare case they are convicted at all? What do we say to God when it takes a video camera catching two police officers in a direct lie to finally indict a police officer for shooting an unarmed man after pulling him over for having only one license plate instead of two? What do we say to God when a communities cry of "hands up don’t shoot" is joined by the helpless babies’ cry of hands up, don’t crush?

This is what we say:

"Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. 13 Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”? 14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless. 15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none.16 The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land. 17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear 18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more."

Break their arm, oh God, so that it can’t crush these babies anymore.

2 Comments

This is excellent...humbling and convicting. I want to do more. Thank you so much for opening your mouth for the oppressed.